My Pick of the Week!

British author Margaret Forster brings to life the relationship between poetess Elizabeth Barrett and her maid "Wilson" in her book The Lady's Maid. It is Wilson who smuggles Miss Barrett out of the gloomy Wimpole Street house, witnesses her secret wedding to Robert Browning in an empty church, and flees with them to threadbare lodgings and the heat, light, and colours of Italy. As housekeeper, nursemaid, companion, and confidante, Lily is with Elizabeth in every crisis — birth, bereavement, travel, literary triumph. As her devotion turns almost to obsession, Lily forgets her own fleeting loneliness. But when Lily's own affairs take a dramatic turn, she comes to expect the loyalty from Elizabeth that she herself has always given.